What graphics card?
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Hi all, have had a few issues of late doing renders. I would like some opinions of my compter specs and what graphics card I should upgrade to. the model I had issues with is 33mb with 1.8 million polys. When I turn on the shadows SU has a think for a mater of minutes (not responding) then evenually comes good (most of the time) Where is my weakest link.
Widnows 7
Quadcore I5-3570K CPU @ 3.4GH
8 gig of ram
unknown graphics cardWill upgrade ram a further 4 gig
What graphics card is a good bet to upgrade to?
If somone could explain what does what that would be a bonus!
Thanks guys
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I would suggest a GPU card, most of the render engines support this.
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Gpu ouch! another thing to get my head around. Does that replace a video card? which one would you suggest I look at?
Sounds GRUNTY though
Would appreciate experiences from all on graphics card/GPU upgrades for sSetchup
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Hold on guys for a minute. I am not a hardware guru so please, correct me if I am wrong but GPU actually means the graphic card. "Graphic Processing Unit".
Steve: you are not saying what renderer you use. For SketchUp itself, a decent but (nowadays) fairly average card is already fine. Even a 512 Mb one. Some rendering apps nowadays are switching to GPU based rendering but they differ in what technology they use for rendering.
Lumion uses DirectX for instance (therefore Windows only), Thea (when the new version comes out) will use Cuda which means you can only eploit GPU based rendering with an nvidia card. Some other renderers may use OpenCL etc. So all depends on what rendering program you are using.
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OK, from your other topic, I see it's Raylectron. I had a quick view at their site but saw no info on any suggested hardware configuration. Do they suggest anything? Is Raylectron GPU based at all?
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I would say it is your GPU "graphics card"
If your pc came from a big box store it probably came with onboard graphics meaning your graphics card is built in on your motherboard.
You have a good CPU "processor" and plenty of memory. I would say any card from Nvidia GTX 500
series of cards would be what I would upgrade to. But you could probably get away with the GTX 400 series.
I have about the same machine as you except I built mine and also use it for gaming I have the GTX 570 card in it, and you really have to try to get Sketchup to start stuttering. -
Hello Steved--
Sounds like your troubles are with the native, simple style of rendering built into SU, as opposed to a third-party renderer used when we want more photorealistic renders.
If you aren't real 'tech oriented', you can get a quick idea of what sort of graphics ("GPU") your computer currently is using by opening the "Device Manager" from within the Windows "Control Panel". Once in the Device Manager, look for an item named "Display Adapter", click on that, and it will name the type of GPU present.
The odds are pretty good that your computer is using the native GPU that is actually built directly into the I5 processor. In your case, with the I5-3570K, that would be the Intel HD 4000 graphics.
You may however have a 'discreet', standalone GPU plugged into the computer's motherboard. That would be either some kind of AMD brand or nVidia brand graphics card. The Windows Device Manager will identify which kind of GPU is present on your system.
As I understand SU, it is fairly undemanding as to computing power, so for SU's modeling and simple rendering there should be little benefit to using a powerful, gaming type GPU. Sketchup does what it does primarily in the CPU.
Dedicated rendering softwares do sometimes make use of the GPU for rendering calculations, but you must read the software's documentation to determine which GPUs are compatible with the software.
@steved said:
Hi all, have had a few issues of late doing renders. I would like some opinions of my compter specs and what graphics card I should upgrade to. the model I had issues with is 33mb with 1.8 million polys. When I turn on the shadows SU has a think for a mater of minutes (not responding) then evenually comes good (most of the time) Where is my weakest link.
Widnows 7
Quadcore I5-3570K CPU @ 3.4GH
8 gig of ram
unknown graphics cardWill upgrade ram a further 4 gig
What graphics card is a good bet to upgrade to?
If somone could explain what does what that would be a bonus!
Thanks guys
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Thanks guys I am on my way to understanding.
Tom everything you said was true including the fitted graphics card. However i opened up my tower to have a look. I found an ASUS EAH5450 graphics card (but embarrassingly was plugged into my Intel HD 4000 graphics card?!??!!!!!!!?)By the way I have found out how to easily find out which graphics card you are using type "dxdiag"into your start search.
I have been on the rayflectron forum and it seems that render ingine is, as graphics card dependant as SU (not very much at all aparently) so I do not seem to need to upgrade my graphics card (unless someone thinks i should) So i can spend the money on ram. My motherboard can take 32 gig so 32 gig it is! might not need it but somehow the idea of having 32 gig of ram makes me feel warm all over...
Thanks again guys
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Steved--
Now you know a little bit more about your computer--that's a good thing.
The GPU in there is a very basic one. I have put a couple of those into computers I assembled to give to neighbors and friends. In fact, the integrated graphics on your I5 CPU are probably more powerful in some ways.
I only looked briefly at the Raylectron website, and did not see specific information relating to hardware requirements. I'll assume that Raylectron is like most rendering software, and so is CPU dependent rather than GPU dependent. If that is the case, then your computer's GPU is really only tasked with drawing the various windows on your monitor(s)--it's the CPU doing the "heavy lifting" in creating the rendered image.
System RAM is always important, as the file size for rendering can get hefty. Fortunately, RAM is comparatively cheap nowadays. Just be careful to verify your motherboard's RAM support, both capacity and RAM speed. I have 16GB in my computer, and it was plenty when I was fooling around with Kerkythea. Kerkythea does not use the GPU for rendering.
If you were working with a GPU-based renderer, such as the Cycles renderer in Blender 3D, then you must be concerned with the GPU's onboard RAM (VRAM) quantity, as the file data for the scene to be rendered must fit entirely on the GPU's RAM. There's lots of stuff to figure out when you're trying something new like rendering.
Then there are "hybrid" renderers, like LuxRender, that utilize both CPU and GPU during the render process.... More things to think about.
The advantage to GPU rendering is greater speed in most cases, so you can at least speed up the learning curve in figuring out how to do rendering for more realism.
@steved said:
Thanks guys I am on my way to understanding.
Tom everything you said was true including the fitted graphics card. However i opened up my tower to have a look. I found an ASUS EAH5450 graphics card (but embarrassingly was plugged into my Intel HD 4000 graphics card?!??!!!!!!!?)By the way I have found out how to easily find out which graphics card you are using type "dxdiag"into your start search.
I have been on the rayflectron forum and it seems that render ingine is, as graphics card dependant as SU (not very much at all aparently) so I do not seem to need to upgrade my graphics card (unless someone thinks i should) So i can spend the money on ram. My motherboard can take 32 gig so 32 gig it is! might not need it but somehow the idea of having 32 gig of ram makes me feel warm all over...
Thanks again guys
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Hi Guys, Ok i am now running 16 gig of ram and have 2GB of nvidia dedicated graphics. Can rotate a 33 MB 2.5 Million face, streetscape with a style applied in real time. HOWEVER when i turn on the shadows in sketchup it stutters as bad as before (Not responding)
What is the largest file size i can post here? I am thinking of attaching the model so someone can tell me if they have any issues with it. I am at a loose end here........ where could the weak link be?Open to all suggerstions here.
Thanks
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Hmmmm, just been looking around and have found sothing thats says the video card should be "open GL" I have treid to read up on this but my learning curve is exhausted on this one can anyone explain if I need to worry about "open GL" for my gainward geforce gtx 660
(nvidea)Thank you.
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That card deinitely supports OpenGL. Make sure to update the drivers though. Can you see any antiliasing options under Window > Preferences > OpenGL settings in SU? If yes then SU can properly see your card.
One thing however. Shadows will inevitably taxt your system - especially when used with some graphics based, sketchy styles. Simply put: do not turn shadows on while modelling. Leave them only for exporting to 2D.
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Hi Gaieus, I have attached an image which has a "no" under shadows. does that mean that the GPU will not assist in the graphics aspect?
Oh and I only turn on shadows when I an about to render (with default styles only) but usually dont get that far on this model (not responding)
Thank You
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The graphic card settings seem to be okay. There is a "speed test" topic here:
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=20076Try to see if your system is especially slow or similar to others' with comparable hardware.
Your model itself already seem to kick the boundaries of SU.
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I'll weigh into this discussion.
I recently bought a Macbook Pro with an Intel HD 4000 GPU to complement my existing one which has a higher spec option ATI Radeon HD 6750M GPU. They are exactly the same computer (identical CPU and RAM) except for the graphics cards.
Tried them out using a fairly intensive sketchup model (approx 30Mb) and could not tell them apart. Open GL, maximum texture size and hardware acceleration all turned on. Rotating the view was fine, maybe generating the shadows was a fraction slower on the HD 4000 computer.
While it could be a different story in a Windows system, for Sketchup running on a Mac the Intel HD 4000 GPU is fine.
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